"Remember the abandoned. This will not turn out as you intend."
She couldn't see his lips to see if he actually spoke or not, but the words were clear. The apparition was the same size as her to within a centimeter. His features hidden, his dress was not. He wore robes like one would see in a Middle Eastern movie. They floated around him as if he stood in a breeze. His hair hung long to his shoulders. Marie looked down and dropped the potato she held into the bag. The sense of being watched disappeared. Marie looked around for him, as if he had walked away instead of disappearing, but saw nothing. The grocery store remained as it had been when she walked in. She gathered her potatoes and the fixings for the chicken and hurried out.
Remember the abandoned. The phrase still meant little to her, yet it kept coming up. In her mind, she had already ascribed supernatural forces to each time it was said. First the man at the school, who was quite likely the same man who had just appeared and the woman in the castle. A connection existed between them, all three of them, but she couldn't think of what. Marie and the woman shared features.
At home, Kevin was still sleeping though he had moved to curl up in the fetal position. She left him there and went into the kitchen. With more than an hour before she needed to start cooking, she decided to let the chicken sit in the buttermilk in the fridge while she got some writing done. The chicken would be nice and moist and she could write some of what she now knew about the mysterious castle.
Ten minutes later, when she sat down to write, the words wouldn't come. She stared at the line she stopped at: Before them stood a grand door at the top of the staircase. And couldn't go any further. Images flashed through her mind but refused to settle enough for her to make heads or tails of them. It felt as if someone was playing with her mind like a kaleidoscope. Pressing her hands over her eyes, she tried to call up the image of the bedroom she woke in with its pillows, flowing curtains, and silk sheets. What appeared before her eyes was murky and faded as if someone had taken mud to her memory.
"What's going on with me?" she asked, sitting away from the keyboard. The book wasn't even half-finished and she could already feel some sort of resolution coming. To have a resolution so early was unusual. Normally, they waited until she was 2/3 finished and then appeared fully formed as if she were simply copying down someone else's words.
The timer on the stove went off. Time to start cooking if she intended for the food to be ready by the time the company came. Marie got up from her place at the computer and went to make dinner.
Naomie and Ray showed up at 6 on the nose, just as Marie expected.
"No meeting with the partners or some such thing tonight?" Marie asked of Naomie as she threw her coat over the back of the couch.
"No, though there has been a little bit of push back about my taking Kevin's case. They want him in to sign a contract as soon as possible so they can make sure they're paid."
"Of course," Marie said looking at Kevin who had moved to the dining room table and was shuffling a pack of cards. He said nothing. Perhaps not even paying attention. Marie ignored his behavior.
"I made your favorite," she said moving over to her husband and throwing an arm around his shoulders. He didn't flinch away but he also didn't move to hold her as she would have expected. Just kept shuffling as if those cards held the keys to immortality. "You don't want it?" she asked.
"Thank you," Kevin said, looking up. His eyes, somehow they seemed faded. Marie wiped her fingers over his forehead.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine, amigo," said Ray. "You look like somebody tried to do a magic trick or two with you and it turned out badly."
"I'm fine," Kevin repeated, getting up from the table. "I'm going to go change my shirt and then we can eat, right?"
"Yeah."
Naomie sat down next to Ray and made eyes at Marie who shrugged. Kevin was gone a minute and came back pulling an AC/DC t-shirt over his head. Marie snickered.
"Thought you might like that," Kevin said.
"What's the joke?"
Ray and Marie both smiled. Naomie however looked puzzled.
"I'll tell you later, sweetheart," Ray said. "For now, let's chow. I'm starving."
Fried chicken, brown perfection, passed around the table. Mashed potatoes and green beans followed. Everyone got themselves heaping helpings and set to eating.
"So what happens now?" asked Kevin around a mouthful of chicken. "I'm free, aren't I?"
"For the most part. You're still a suspect and they're gathering evidence against you in order to prove the indictment. You haven't been proven guilty or innocent." Naomie had better manners; she cleared her mouth before she began to speak. "So it's in our best interest to establish an alibi, an unassailable one, which keeps you away from the scene of the crime during the time it could have been committed."
Marie's worries popped up again. Would Kevin go to jail? Was he dangerous? What was going on? Nothing seemed to answer those questions for her.
"Is Kevin going to jail?" she asked.
"Not at the moment and not if I can help it. We just need to establish an alibi."
"But I told the detective everything I know. I don't remember the night of the murder."
"But you do remember your dream, right? So you were asleep somewhere. The question is: where?"
"I don't remember." Kevin's eyes darted from one person to the next as if looking for someone who could answer the question for him of where he was during the night of Rebecca's murder. No one could come to his rescue though. "I wish I could remember."
"Don't try to force it," Naomie said. "Memories like that usually come back when you're nice and calm, so just take a few days, relax, and let it come to you."
"I wish you remembered too," said Marie. "It would make this so much easier."
Ray kept his peace, munching on the still crisp green beans.
Kevin mumbled something to the table and Marie said,
"Say again?"
"What if I did do it?" Kevin asked. His eyes had that wild look of him being drunk again. Yet the blue seemed faded somehow as if he weren't quite all there.
"You didn't so there's nothing to talk about there," Naomie said.
"But what if they find something that puts me there? What if there's evidence that I really did... do this?" He stumbled to a stop trying to make himself say what he had done. Perhaps because it was too heinous a crime.
"Kevin, this is an exercise in scaring yourself and Marie. I won't go down this road with you."
"She's right, amigo, there's no use in scaring yourself with what it would be like to go to prison for life."
Naomie nudged Ray with her elbow. He looked at her as if he'd done nothing wrong, then turned sheepish.
Kevin stared across the table and Marie put her right hand on his left.
"There's nothing to worry about," Marie said.
"I think I did it," whispered Kevin.
"No, you don't," said Marie. She looked around for support and met Naomie's soft and compassionate eyes. Yet the lawyer said nothing.
"It's not your fault, baby," Marie said. "They're just looking for a scapegoat. You did nothing wrong."
"How do you know that? I don't even remember where I was." Kevin snatched his hand away and stood up from the table. "I probably did it and you're just being my friends by trying to help me."
"I'm not your friend, I'm your wife."
"And you're supposed to stand by my side, regardless of what I do. Even if I'm dead guilty."
"Kevin," Ray said. "Sit down and stop scaring the women. If you want to be theatrical about your guilt, wait for court."
"No, you don't want to do this in court. Reasonable doubt, remember. If we can give them a reason to doubt your guilt, you could walk."
Kevin collapsed into his chair and put his head in his hands. Marie reached over to touch his hair. He flinched away.
"I know I did it," he said after several long mome
nts of silence. "Mephisto told me."
The other three at the table looked at each other in horror.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
He couldn't raise his eyes. If he did, he knew he would see the look of horror on Marie's face. He could see her eyes, wide and unbelieving, and her mouth just slightly disengaged. All there for him to see. Imagining Marie's reaction brought him to wonder if Naomie would still want to represent him now that she knew. Ray would probably leave him to himself, but the girls. Well, the truth was, he didn't know what any of them would do. A warm presence tucked up against him and lightly pulled his hair.
"Kevin?" Marie said. She didn't sound horrified or angry. "Kevin. Look at me."
Kevin brought his head up slowly, ready to recover his eyes with his hands at a moment's notice. Marie had moved to right against his arm and she had her arm around him.
"I love you," she said.
He wanted to say the words back but they stuck in his throat. Seeing her so calm and sure just made him less sure of what he'd gone through. This was reality, the rest a dream. Maybe it was just his conscience talking, making him feel as if he had done something he really hadn't. He leaned across the space to press a kiss to his wife's lips. She accepted.
"I love you too," he finally managed to say.
"Tell me about this dream. I bet it frightened you." Though he didn't look, he felt the others at the table watching him. In all his years as a performer, he had never felt so afraid of the stares of his audience. He didn't want them looking at him. He focused on Marie who also watched him, but her eyes were soft and sweet, the eyes of a lover.
"I dreamed I was in the book, "Howling Laughter." I ended up in the bloody theater and found myself in the Mirthless Dunes just like in the book. I confronted the witch, but instead of fighting her, I convinced her to take me to the Jester's castle where she melted in the sun. Then I made my way through the Gibbering Hallway to get into the Jester's inner sanctum, but when I got there, I found out I was actually there to see Mephisto, who was the Jester. He said he would grant me the voice if I would do one thing for him."
Kevin stopped there. Going on meant admitting to something he found so horrible, he couldn't even bring himself to describe it. Letting out a slow breath, he reached up to touch Marie's face.
"I love you."
"Finish the story."
"Yes. All I had to do to get the voice was say the name of the woman I killed."
Out of sight someone, probably Naomie, gasped. Kevin let his fingertips linger on his wife's skin, realizing again the contrast between them.
"At first I thought it meant Sylvia but I knew I didn't do that. But I remembered my dream from the night before, the dream where I was trapped in the box. Outside and around me, I heard someone screaming my name and smelt burning candy and skin. When I said Rebecca's name, it congratulated me. Then it gave me the voice and let me go."
"There's nothing like that in the book," Ray said.
"I know," Marie said. "But once again, someone knows something that didn't make it into print. The first draft of "Howling Laughter" has an exchange much like that, but it's the name of the woman he loves that Mephisto asks Timothy for."
Kevin looked from Marie to Ray and then back to his wife.
"Are you upset at me?"
Marie leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
"I don't think you did anything wrong. Just be easy on that."
Reaching up, Kevin scratched at his throat. His voice had been off all day. And he wanted to talk so little. Maybe it was the voice affecting him. Either way, he wanted to be done with all this talking and move on to something else, though what that something else was he didn't know.
"So what does that mean, Marie," Naomie asked. "I got the heart. Ray got the skull. Now Kevin's got the voice."
"I think it means we're the ones who are going to have to defeat him on this plane," Marie said. Her brow furrowed and she rubbed her temples. "I just don't know how yet. We have all the pieces, but where to go to find him, I'm not sure."
"So you think he's trying to come through here, somehow, and we've been given the pieces to stop him?" Ray's question got a shrug.
"I don't really know. I'm making this up as I go along. A figment of my imagination is invading the dreams of my friends and now I've got to come up with a way to stop him before he can do too much more damage. Oh and I've got to come up with the fourth book before my deadline passes. No pressure."
Naomie leaned over to pat Marie's hand. "You're doing fine. Don't worry about it. Solutions come more easily when you're relaxed. Besides, if I understand this correctly, we have everything he needs and his minions are defeated, so we've already won."
Marie nodded.
Kevin had stopped a turn back at how the others were also being affected by the strange dreams and the interaction with the Dark King's minions. He wasn't alone. It brought tears of joy to his eyes along with a shiver of despair. It was not only his burden. He wasn't losing his mind unless the others were losing theirs as well. However, that meant whatever the apparition said might be true. Rebecca was dead. Did he have a hand in it?
He shook his head and reached out to touch his wife's forehead still furrowed with thought. Naomie telling her to relax had done nothing. Marie still worried over the outcome.
"There's something else. The castle that the Dark King is trapped in. It's morphed before my eyes and on more than one occasion I've been told to remember the abandoned, though I can't figure out what that is supposed to mean."
Kevin swept his fingers down along Marie's ear in a soothing gesture. "You'll figure it out," he said.
"What if I don't," she said, echoing her husband's earlier response. "What if I don't figure it out in time?"
"Like Naomie said," said Ray. "We're already winning because we have all the pieces. He has none. We're good."
Marie said nothing else, but she leaned her face down to hide her eyes. Kevin, removed from his own piteous behavior by hers, took her by the chin and lifted her head until he could see her eyes.
"You've got this; you understand this world and everything about it. You built it. He can't do anything you don't allow."
"Then explain how two people are dead already?"
He didn't have a response for that. Instead he kissed her lightly. She needed to know he thought she could do anything because he did.
"Maybe what you need is some quiet time," Naomie said. "We could all go out and leave you to write for a while. A solution may come up then."
"After the last few days, the last thing I want to do is go out," said Ray and Kevin nodded. "Could stay in and play cards?"
The deck Kevin had been shuffling sat on the edge of the table not quite forgotten. Ray picked it up and took the top two, the three of hearts and the queen of spades.
"Spades, hearts, rummy, something," Ray continued.
Marie wasn't looking at any of them and hadn't made an opinion known. Kevin rubbed his thumb across her right cheek and tried to coax the words out of her. Anything was better than the silence hanging around her like a shroud.
"Baby?" Kevin said.
"Do whatever you want. I'll be in my office." Her words exploded out and landed on the table with a splat and she fled the table. Kevin stared at her retreating form, arm on the back of his chair to lever out and go after her. The door of her office shut firmly and he stayed where he was. Leaving her alone seemed the best course of action. He could only imagine her guilt seeing his own. Rebecca and Sylvia had been friends, even if Rebecca had been more distant. Now they were both dead. He felt as if some part of him had died as a result. Marie probably felt worse because she dealt with more emotion than him.
"So what do you say, lady and gentleman, a game of cards?" Kevin said using his best theatrical voice. It came out raspy and wrong, but apparently his audience couldn't tell because they smiled.
"Yes, a game of cards. Got any money to lose, Kevin?"
"No, Raymond, I do not. And I would
n't dream of dragging Naomie into such a paltry thing as betting."
"You don't have to drag Naomie into anything," Naomie said. "I'm more than well versed in three different versions of poker. So let's play."
"I'm gonna warn you ahead of time, amigo. Mamacita has a poker face."
"I consider myself duly warned. But she's never played against mine."
"This is about to get very interesting. I'm almost glad we're not playing for money," said Ray
"I've got a bag of Hershey's kisses in the cabinet. Name your stakes."
"Oh, chocolate. Capital idea," said Naomie.
"Texas hold 'em. Winner take all." Kevin shuffled one more time and then started to deal. "No counting cards, ma'am, not that I would impinge on your honor by assuming that you do."
"Mind what you say, Magician."
"I always do, it just never quite works out for me."
The three laughed. With the hands dealt, Kevin got up and took away the plates. He'd wash the dishes later. As he passed through the hallway, he could hear sobbing. On his way back, he paused at the door of her office in the spare bedroom and listened to Marie cry. He wished he could with that much abandon, but he just didn't have the tears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ray's gray Silverado rolled onto the construction site as daylight was just starting to break. He waved at some of the others already there, most of them in their hard hats like they were supposed to be. He patted his head at Lester, who was one of the ones without his. The younger man blinked and caught the sign. Ducking, he came back up with a bright yellow hard hat on his head. Ray smiled. His crew would be working the scaffolding today. Not for the faint of heart or the frightened of heights. He parked his truck and dropped down into the dust. The high rise in construction towered over him as a skeleton with just the suggestion of the floors it would have.
The construction foreman's office was in a trailer on the south end of the property and Ray made for it. As he entered he heard,
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